The worldwide industrial revolution of the past two centuries changed the global energy scene from essentially total global reliance on renewable energy forms as the driving force for the world economies to global reliance almost entirely on fossil energy forms. The consequences of this global change are elevated carbon-dioxide content in the atmosphere and perceived potential for a consequential deleterious climate change.
Accordingly, worldwide concern exists to identify and develop means to protect against the prospect of deleterious climate change, by capturing carbon dioxide produced from fossil-fuel combustion before it can be emitted to the atmosphere. This concern is expressed in two complementary ways. In one, regulatory authorities establish enforceable standards for fossil-fuel use that limit carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere by whatever means are practical. In the other, research and development enterprises demonstrate potentially cost-effective technologies that suppress emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere through its capture for disposal by means other than emission to the atmosphere.
The technological means for carbon dioxide capture that are generally being researched and demonstrated are based on the use of an agent, which may be an inorganic or organic chemical, usually water soluble. For one selected set of temperature and pressure, the agent absorbs carbon dioxide from its presence in diluted form in conventional gaseous emissions and liberates (desorbs) the absorbed carbon dioxide in a pure form from the agent under a different selected set of temperature and pressure. The use of an organic amine as the agent is widely accepted in industry for extracting carbon dioxide from a variety of gases. Interest also exists, for example, in the use of an inorganic ammonium-carbonate/ammonium-bicarbonate aqueous solution.